Planet of the Apes

September 26, 2014

OK, so it took a little longer than a few more weeks but, my review of the live Action Planet of the Apes series from 1974 is finally done. As I mentioned in my previous article on the animated Return to the Planet of the Apes series this followed on from the Battle for the Planet of the Apes theatrical movie. The apes franchise was pretty much at the zenith of its popularity at the time and the merchandising around it would prove to be a prelude to the explosion following the success of Star Wars. I was in the target age group for this series and had the Mego Planet of the Apes action figures and am pretty sure I had the treehouse at the time. I remember watching the first episode and did watch a few more but lost interest in the show fairly quickly. These memories made me somewhat reluctant to revisit the series when Eric at The Movie Waffler asked me for a review of it. The relative scarcity of the series on DVD, which is no longer readily available and seems to go for decent money on Ebay, made me think I may not get a chance to revisit the show. So, I guess I should add this one to the “this should really be available on DVD” list as well. Fortunately (although I didn’t see it that way at first) my friend Rich Chamberlain over at Monster Movie Kid generously lent me his set. So, what was my reaction to revisiting a childhood genre series that I didn’t exactly have fond memories of? You’ll have to check it out here in my review.